Can pneumonia after chemo be mistaken for lung cancer recurrence?

Yes, pneumonia can sometimes appear similar to cancer recurrence on imaging, which can create confusing situations like what you're experiencing. Infections, especially severe ones involving multiple types like you described, can cause inflammation and changes that may look concerning on scans and affect tumor marker levels. It sounds like you're dealing with a very complex medical situation with multiple specialists involved, which is appropriate given the severity of what you've been through. Your care team will be able to sort through these findings and determine what each symptom and test result means in your specific case.

But I was diagnosed with pneumonia by a different hospital and I was getting worse cuz the antibiotics weren't strong enough. Then the cancer center took me off antibiotics because they said I had possible lung cancer. What you are saying makes no sense.